Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Action, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am delighted to inform the House and to speak on behalf of the people of Flinders, and in particular the Mornington Peninsula, about the Eastern Treatment Plant upgrade, which has now been fully commissioned. This is a major win for the community and for the Clean Ocean Foundation. I am thrilled to have played a small role in that campaign over such a long period. This upgrade came at a cost of $418 million. It would not have happened without an ongoing community campaign led by people such as Peter Smith and Anton Vigenser, and so many others from the Clean Ocean Foundation.

The plant will now treat more than 100 billion litres of waste water to a class A recycled water standard each year. It will use a combination of ozone treatment, filters and UV and chlorine disinfection. It has resulted in a major improvement in the quality of water discharged at Gunnamatta Beach. This is what we fought for, this is what we campaigned for and this is what we argued for, and a $418 million result is a brilliant outcome for the community, the environment and the future.

The upgrade has produced recycled water that can be used widely for things such as bathrooms, sportsgrounds, golf courses and irrigation. The Eastern Treatment Plant has already begun to supply 22 billion litres of recycled water to users each year. Now our task as a community and as members of parliament in conjunction with the state government is to work to ensure that this water is progressively fully recycled. It is a great step forward, a great achievement. I am delighted that so many people over so long have seen one of the true great local community successes in Victoria, and that is the clean up of Gunnamatta Beach.

The second issue is now not so much a success as the next great campaign and fight within the electorate. That is the fight for hospital services and a hospital facility on Phillip Island. I want to reaffirm before the parliament to the people of Phillip Island that I am 100 per cent committed and will not rest, just as was the case in our joint fight for Gunnamatta, to ensure that hospital facilities are re-established on Phillip Island. We will keep going until it is done.

The history here is that Warley had struggled but had been supported. In the months leading up to the 2007 federal election, I worked closely with the board on a rescue plan that would have saved the hospital. We were able to secure a $2.5 million pledge during the campaign to save the hospital but the incoming ALP government walked away, it reneged on the deal, and the Warley Hospital died not long after the transition of government. Those funds would have kept it going and would have allowed it a secure future. Despite our urging, the ALP failed to honour what had been made as a government commitment prior to the calling of writs and the funding that was announced during the election period.

The task now is to secure the hospital facilities that the island badly needs. My view is that this is a four-stage task to ensure that we have a health hub with round-the-clock GP services. I am not fussed as to what is the right place and way; it is the round-the-clock element for which we have to fight. The second element is to ensure that we have allied health facilities, the third element is palliative care or respite and the fourth element is to get the acute hospital beds back. We will just keep going until that is done.

We have federal funding that we announced at the last election. That continues. We have the Warley trust funding. We need to work together with the state government to bring all of these elements into place so we have the beds which will form the basis of hospital facilities on Phillip Island. Just as we had the success with Gunnamatta, we will not rest until there is success with Warley.